Monday, January 24, 2011

As I wrote the other day, there are seemingly 101 different interpretations as to what breaking a glass symbolizes at a Jewish wedding. I chose to focus on an optimistic interpretation; breaking the glass means your marriage will last forever. However, one of the more pessimistic/Jewish realist interpretations is that we break the glass to remember that even during our times of great happiness there are people suffering in the world. Unfortunately, shortly after the wedding, my wedding guests and I got to see some suffering first hand.

Shortly after leaving Phu Ly, the "honeymoon" bus was driving south down the two lane highway when it encountered a small traffic jam. I'm not sure who spotted him first but someone said, "There's a man in the road." It quickly became clear that there was an accident up ahead and everyone had the natural reaction of looking out their window. Being in the front of the bus and having perfect eagle eye vision, I was able to see that the scene ahead was extremely gruesome. I casually got up, walked down the aisle of the bus and told everyone to look away. Most people took my advice, turned their heads and averted their eyes. However, a couple of people didn't and instinctively muttered what they had seen. The first person said something like, "Oh my god he's dead." The second person added some description which I'll spare in this post. I'm writing this post a month after the wedding, and the image is still haunting me.

I've stood on my soap box a few times on this blog and I'll do it again -- wear helmets!